Rob Wagner With StringsBy Geoffrey Himes Rob Wagner is that rarest of jazz figures: the striking improviser who is also a remarkable composer. Last year, he began composing pieces for saxophone trio and string trio, performing them at the Dragon’s Den and aiming at a September concert at the Ogden Museum. Well, there were no concerts in New Orleans last September, and the show was rescheduled for the middle of Jazz Fest with Martin Krusche’s tenor sax substituting Helen Gillet’s cello. Despite all these obstacles, the show was a soaring triumph. Playing in the museum lobby amid the three-storey-tall stone pillars, the sextet moved assuredly from notation to improvisation and back again. The jazz players displayed uncommon discipline in playing parts, and the classical players demonstrated unexpected freedom in spinning variations on those motifs. Holding it all together was Wagner, wearing pinstripe pants and a white canvas hat with the brim ripped off. His curved, golden soprano sax articulated fragmentary darting phrases that suggested Ornette Coleman at his most lyrical.
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